The British consumer may still like to hang on to his cash and may still harbour vaguely puritanical suspicions about credit cards, but there are indications that old habits, though they die hard, are nevertheless dying. In this article, Ingrid Hayles explains the benefits which the own‐brand...

This paper featured in the one‐day conference held in London in May '79. The conference, entitled ‘Urban distribution — strategy for the future’ and organised by the National Materials Handling Centre, had two objectives: to bring about a greater awareness of the causes of problems in...

This paper by D R Hornby, President of the Food Manufacturers Federation, is based on the various issues which arose from the FMF conference in March. Firstly, it might be as well to ask what is meant by the title of the conference, ‘Food in the Balance’? Quite simply, in D R Hornby's view,...

The application of electronic data processing at point of sale has been one of the most impact‐full events on the retail scene in the western world. Many retailers are still anxiously assessing the likely benefits — both soft and hard — while at the same time calculating the costs....

There have been a number of studies of store image (especially in the US), some of which have thrown up useful definitions. But so far relatively little has been done to establish what difference may exist in image as far as different departments of a variety store are concerned. In this special...

Buying your own computer is not necessarily the only answer. One of the alternatives is to use the services of a computing bureau, and this is what has been done by Hillards, the successful north country‐based supermarket group. They have built up a partnership with Baric Computing Services...

What has been the progress of scanning in the United States over the past few years? After initial difficulties, things now seem to be picking up. Just over 8,000 manufacturing companies are using a UPC identity number; symbol marking has increased to around 90% of grocery volume; and the number...

Darty is one of the most interesting French retail companies to emerge in recent years. Selling “white” and “brown” household appliances, it has quadrupled its turnover in four years and multiplied its profit by 7.5. It has installed an integrated merchandise management system in its...

The need to anticipate the state of the market for the next few decades calls for excellent judgement rather than clairvoyance (although that would help too) and an ability to read the signs of the times. The buzz has already gone round that we are heading for a post industrial revolution, and...

When this address was first delivered to the National Conference of the Federation of Wholesale and Industrial Distributors in July, Lady Margaret Hall took it upon herself to act as a catalyst. The tone of the article therefore is fairly rousing. In fact, it is an attempt to rouse the wholesale...